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...nothing.

A cold, suffocating weight pressed against my ribs, wrapping around my chest like a vise.

I was trapped.

For the first time in my existence, I couldn’t leave.

Aside from the usual sigil traps and containment spells, there were very few things in this world that could prevent an incubus demon from zapping themselves back to their own realm. Headless Hollow was a monster-exclusive town. Maybe there was some kind of a spell on it that would stop my ability to go back to my realm? A sharp chill crept down my spine as my mind supplied another reason an incubus wouldn’t be able to return to their realm.

If they had met their mate.

The crunch of footsteps against the leaf-littered ground sent another jolt of tension through me. My breath hitched as I turned toward the movement, every muscle in my body coiling with anticipation.

My eyes locked onto a pair of cloudy azure irises, framed by coarse white brows, and I let out a long, slow exhale.

Unless my fated mate was a seventy-year-old man with a wiry beard and bad posture—which I prayed to Hecate wasn’t true—then I hadn’t been summoned. Which meant I was stuck in this realm for some other reason.

“Howdy, neighbor,” my not-mate greeted, his voice weak but enthusiastic. He was short and frail, wrapped in a moth-eaten knitted cardigan that barely concealed a stained button-up shirt. His crumpled trousers hung loosely on him, and his threadbare slippers scuffed against the dirt as he shuffled forward. In each hand, he held a trash bag, which he set down at the end of an inconspicuous lane I hadn’t noticed before.

I reached out with my senses, searching for the telltale signs of his emotions. Wrapping around the man was the thick and cloying scent of desire for someone lost.

“You staying in the haunted house?” the stranger asked, tilting his head toward the cabin. His eyes flashed red in the moonlight—a flicker, brief but unmistakable—and I knew immediately what he was. A basilisk.

I’d only met a handful of basilisks on my travels. They were covetous by nature, noble in their own way, but not the kind of creatures you would want to make direct eye contact with if you got on their bad side.

“It would appear so,” I said evenly, flicking a glance toward the cabin. The ghost had vanished from the porch, now lurking upstairs, its hollow eyes peering down at us with silent scrutiny, as if deciding how much of a problem I was going to be.

“Frightened, son? You wouldn’t be the first.” The basilisk let out a gravelly chuckle. “I thought an incubus would be made of tougher stuff.”

A prickle of defensiveness flickered over my skin, my shoulders tensing instinctively.

“I don’t usually get the chance to tell the tourists this,” he said, his red-tinged gaze flicking toward the cabin, “but there’s a trick with that house.”

“A trick?” I echoed, skepticism lacing my voice.

“Yeah,” the basilisk murmured, the humor in his tone laced with an undercurrent I couldn’t quite place my finger on. “A trick. You just need to compliment it.”

I narrowed my eyes at him, trying to assess if he was pulling my leg or genuinely suggesting that I should flirt with the ghost.

“Tell it the curtains look nice,” he said with an echo of a laugh. “Or that it’s done a fine job keeping the place clean. It likes that.” He exhaled softly, shaking his head. “Do that, and it’ll be like putty in your hands.”

I studied him carefully. “And how do you know this?” More importantly, why was he telling me?

The basilisk shrugged as if he didn’t quite understand why he was helping me out either. “I knew the family who owned the house. Tragic, what happened to them.” His lips—at least, what I could see of them beneath his wiry beard—curled into a sad, almost bitter smile. “And their daughter...” He hesitated for a moment. “She didn’t deserve what happened to her.”

The basilisk let out a long breath, shaking his head. “I don’t usually get the chance to make small talk with the guests staying here, so take my advice—compliment the house.”

I paused, then slowly nodded. “Um. Thank you.”

“Anyway.” He gestured toward the lane. “I’m just in the cabin down there if you need anything. If youdosurvive the night”—he grinned, but there was no real humor in it—“you can call in and visit me and my wife. Speaking of which, I really ought to get back to her.”

The way he said “her” had something twisting in my gut. His wife. The one whose presence lingered in the air, laced with the sharp, peppery sting of confusion, raw and unsettled, like a memory struggling to hold its shape.

“Thanks,” I mumbled.

“Good luck!” The basilisk chuckled, the sound low and husky, reverberating through the trees long after he had vanished into the darkness.

I took a steadying breath, forcing my shoulders to relax as I turned toward the cabin. The moment I stepped forward, the shutters began to rattle in warning. Feeling incredibly foolish, I cleared my throat and hesitantly took the old basilisk’s advice.